Wednesday, December 7, 2011

What Drawing Means to Me

Since I was a child, I have always enjoyed drawing. Drawing was something I would do when I either wanted to impress my parents or just felt like relaxing. In middle school, I started to invest more time into it and decided to take a full year of art in eighth grade. I had a good friend, who's mom was an artist and she hired a professional to give us lessons every month. I guess you could say that my experience with drawing peeked upon graduation from middle school when I won the eighth grade art award, since I decided to pursue a more academic track in high school. However, I will never forget the joy and feeling of satisfaction I got out of the completion of my drawing projects in eighth grade, as I was fully invested in the art at the time. I recall drawing as a way for me to express my creativity and also used it to illustrate one of my deepest passions. This interest was motivated by the fact that I had always wanted to become a famous resort developer and engineer incredible hotels that would put the current five star resorts to shame. The summer after seventh grade, I spent many weeks drawing out the blueprints to my dream resort, which I called, the "Grand R. T. Spratley Beach and Spa Resort." I was very meticulous in my drawing and spent a lot of time on the small details involved. I even spent time drawing parts of the resort in a three dimensional perspective to that the viewer could understand what exactly was drawn in the blueprints. Below, is a scanned image of the blueprints, which ended up consisting of eighth pages total.

Today, I still look back on this drawing as a childhood achievement, as it motivated me to work hard throughout high school and get into a good college, where I can study engineering and business together. As a current Mechanical Engineer minoring in Economics, I know that this motivation has payed off and am still working towards my dreams.

When I realized that I could take a drawing class here at Duke that would serve as a credit towards my major, I knew that this class was the perfect fit. Working on the projects in Drawing 100 has brought me back to the relaxation and enjoyment that I had experienced in middle school and it's been nice to be able to spend time on something that I would not normally spend time on in my daily life here. Throughout this class, I have also learned much about the different styles of drawing and how every artist has their own approach towards what they want accomplished in their projects. Just looking at the variety of drawings in our class has been interesting and enlightening as there has seemed to be a correlation between our personalities and the emotions expressed in our drawings. It has been a true pleasure to be a part of this class this semester and I am quite satisfied with the drawing skills I have developed and the strategies I have learned throughout the semester that have helped me create good drawings.